PVK’s snippets for ‘Dimdima’ the magazine for children published from Bombay, then edited by Meera Nair. I wrote three pieces for the magazine, one on the game of hockey, one on watches and its history and a third or rockets and rocketry.
‘Hockey’
Hockey is one of the oldest games in the world. The game, in which two teams attempt to strike a ball with curved sticks into an opponent’s goal, was played in ancient Persia, Egypt, Greece and among the native Indians of America.
During the Middle Ages it was played in France under the name ‘hoquet’. Hoquet was French for a shepherd’s crook. The English form of the word is hockey.
Modern hockey was first played in England in the late 19th century. In 1886 the Hockey Association was formed in London and the rules of modern hockey were soon laid down. Each team had to have 11 players and for a goal to be scored it had to be struck from within a circle of 16 yards. The game spread to other parts of the globe.
India soon produced hockey players of great skill. From 1928, when hockey was made a regular event in the Olympic games, until fairly recently, India dominated world hockey. At the 1932 Olympics the performance of the Indian hockey team was so impressive the sports writers covering the Olympics voted the Indian team’s performance the outstanding exhibition of skill in any sport.
The short-toed hockey stick and a grip that allowed great control were developed in India. Between 1928 and 1956 India won all Olympic golds in hockey; India played 24 Olympic matches and won all of them in this period.
Indian hockey has declined since then though India has won two more Olympic gold medals – at Tokyo in 1964 and Moscow in 1980. The men’s game is now dominated by countries like Australia, Netherlands, Germany, Argentina, South Korea, Pakistan and Spain.
The most famous of India’s hockey players is Dhyan Chand. He was a member of three of India’s Olympic gold medal winning teams and the most prolific scorer hockey has seen. He was a magician with the stick and his record of 101 Olympic goals will probably never be broken.
Women’s hockey is also a popular sport around the world. At the Asian level India has done well in women’s hockey but the world scene is dominated by European and American teams.
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‘Rockets’
The earliest rockets were made by the Chinese. These rockets were made using bamboo tubes and gunpowder and came to be called “Fire Sticks”. The first recorded use of such rockets in battle was in A.D. 1232 when the Chinese used them against the Mongols.
Knowledge about rocketry spread from China to other parts of the world. They were used to great effect during the Mysore wars (1766-1799) against the British. The British were quick to adapt this new weapon and used it in Europe and America.
The father of modern rocketry is the Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). He designed rockets and published scientific papers on space travel and all aspects of rocketry. The basic theory of rocket propulsion was developed by Tsiolkovsky.
The first great rocket scientist of the 20th century is Robert H. Goddard (1882-1945). A physicist, a scientist and an inventor he was inspired by H.G. Wells’ stories about space exploration and came up with innumerable ideas and innovations that set rocket science on a firm foundation. Among the patents Goddard was granted were ones for a liquid propelled rocket and another for a multi-staged rocket. Many of his ideas were used in rockets built later.
Another important pioneer was Hermann Oberth (1894-1989) a German who in 1923 wrote about space travel. His work led to the development of the famous V-2, a sophisticated rocket missile that the Germans later used to attack London. The use of rockets to launch long-range missiles had begun.
After the war many of the German scientist who had worked on the V-2 migrated to the USA. Among them was Wernher von Braun, the chief designer of the V-2. He had begun his career as an assistant to Oberth.
On October 4, 1957 the space age began with the launching, by the Soviet Union, of the world first artificial satellite Sputnik. It also began the Space Race, an intense competition in space exploration between the Russians and the Americans. Several satellites similar to the Sputnik were launched by the Russians. Their technological skills and scientific knowledge improved rapidly.
In January 1958 the Americans, led by Von Braun launched their first rocket to space Jupiter-C. Its satellite was called Explorer I. Both the Russians and the Americans began developing better rockets and more sophisticated satellites.
On April 12, 1961, the Russians launched Yuri Gagarin into space. (Five months earlier they had launched a dog, Laika, into space.) The Americans intensified their efforts to conquer space. They developed two series of rockets, the Mercury and Saturn V in an attempt to beat the Russians. In July 1969 they succeeded in sending the first men to land on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin.
Much has been achieved since then. Rockets have been launched into deep space, space stations have been set up and innumerable scientific, military and commercial space flights conducted. With the collapse of the Soviet Union the rivalry between the Russians and the Americans ended and was replaced by collaboration. Today many countries are members of the space club. The next major landmark is probably sending men to Mars.
‘Space: The Indian Story’
India was one of the first countries to embark on a space programme. The first Indian rocket was launched on November 21, 1963 from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS). In 1969 the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was founded. In 1975 ISRO manufactured Aryabhata, India’s first satellite. This was launched by the Russians. India developed its own launch vehicles. They included the SLVs, the ASLVs, the PSLVs and the GSLVs. India also built increasingly sophisticated satellites and soon achieved self-sufficiency in this area.
In 1984 Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian in space when he participated in a mission to the space station Salyut 7.
India now has an ambitious space programme. The ultimate aim of the Chandrayaan rockets, a series of rocket launches that began in 2008, is to put an Indian on the moon.
Note: A couple of minor corrections have been made to the original article.
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‘The History of Watches’
Men have made devices to measure time from the earliest days of civilization. They include sundials, water clocks, sand glasses or hour glasses and lamps or candle clocks. For centuries men relied on these. Sundials were used as early as BC 3500 in Babylonia and Egypt. Water clocks and other devices were invented to overcome the problem of keeping time when there was no sunlight.
Mechanical clocks were invented in 14th century Europe. In 1500, Peter Henlein, a locksmith from Nuremberg in Germany, made the first spring-driven clock. This led to the development of watches, for only spring-propelled devices could be easily carried around. Earlier, clocks had been driven by weights.
No one is sure exactly when the first watch was made. A device crafted by Henlein in 1524 could have been the first watch. But the middle of the 16th century watches were being made in Germany and in France. They were four or five inches in diameter and some three inches thick. They were clumsy and inaccurate. A contemporary illustration shows a servant carrying one for his master.
In the 17th century, watches were worn around the neck and were often crafted like pieces of jewellery. While iron and brass had been used earlier to make timepieces, steel for the inner mechanism, and more precious metals for the outer covering came to be used. Many of them had a dial with 1 to 12 marked in an outer circle and 13 to 24 in an inner one. But these early watches had only one hand – to mark the hour.
An important step in the technical development of the watch was the introduction of the spiral balance spring mechanism in 1675. Christiaan Huygens of Holland and Robert Hooke are both credited with inventing it. This improved the accuracy of watches from fractions of an hour to fractions of a minute. Minute hands were added to watches after this. Around this time, it became fashionable to carry watches in the pockets of coats rather than wear them around the neck.
Constant improvements were made in watches throughout the 18th century. Watches became more accurate, dependable and smaller. Balance wheels and hair-springs were introduced. England was by now the leading watch making country in the world. Two English watchmakers began to use jewels as bearings. Some of the technical innovations of the time continued to be used till the 20th century.
A time keeping device accurate enough to determine longitude at sea is called a chronometer. An English carpenter John Harrison won a prize of 20,000 pounds for an accurate chronometer with one of his inventions in 1761. Other watch makers improved his design and by 1800, the pocket chronometer was available.
The chronograph, developed to measure time as well as intervals of time, was developed in 1855. Stopwatches, which measured only duration, were soon developed. A self-winding watch patented in London in 1924 had a design that most such watches follow to this day.
In the 19th century Switzerland began to make watches in large numbers. While innovations continued to be made by manufacturers in England and other places by the time the first world war ended, the Swiss had the world’s most organised and largest watch industry.
Electrical and electronic watches are all fairly recent inventions. The most accurate clock in the world in the atomic clock the movement of which is determined by the oscillations taking place in individual atoms.
The watch has now become a common and very dependable piece of equipment. From the 1960s Japan played an important role in the mass manufacture of watches.
A footnote:
My ill-advised attempt to contribute to ‘Dimdima’ ended with these three snippets. I ran foul of one of the seniors in Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan who was irritated at my refusing to include fabulations about ancient Indian science and technology in my tiny essays.
P. Vijaya Kumar / PVK
profpvk@gmail.com
Thank you. Nandri. Namaskaram.
PVK 01/June/2026
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